Wednesday, March 11, 2009

how does an entire airport run out of rental cars

so, here we go again... sunday, i flew to ft. lauderdale, after searching for more than 45 minutes for my hotel (it was only 15 miles from the airport)... seriously, i hate the navigation system on my blackberry sometimes.... i didn't get much sleep that night, i had an early morning on monday co-monitoring with a coworker. i flew from florida to charlotte. once i got to charlotte, i only had about 20 minutes to get to my next gate. i was walking as fast as possible, but still trying to be careful in my ankle brace... this lady on one of those sky cap things, says... "hey, where you going with that limp?" i turn around and say, "D9." i was at B12. the charlotte airport is not designed for the quick connections, at all. she says, "hop on honey, i'll get you there." meanwhile, the drivers of these skycaps are dangerous. i had to hold on for dear life. i mean, i wonder if i wouldn't be safer walking with my bum ankle, haha. she would honk the horn and scream at people to get out of her way. i seriously thought that she was going to take out quite a few people on our way. good thing though, when she dropped me off, they were boarding my flight.

when i arrived in richmond, i get my bag. then, i go to the gold booth for hertz, and it is was closed. so i go to the regular counter, and the line is very long... like at least 10 people are in front of me...that is abnormal. usually for gold members, they have our reservations lined up and we just show our IDs and go on out to get our cars... problem... after standing in line for about 45 minutes, i get to the counter to hear the following words (at 12:15 am)... "i am sorry for the inconvenience ma'am, but we are out of cars, even though you have a reservation." i cannot believe it. there are like some 17 people behind me. i say to the lady, can you at least make an announcement for the people behind me... so they do, which causes chaos. they tell us that they are going to reimburse us for cab fares to our destinations for monday night, then deliver cars to us by noon on tuesday, ha. so, i give them my cell number, and they tell me the manager will call me in the morning to arrange the delivery of my rental car... so by 11:30 am i still have not heard from arya (the manager) of hertz, so i call her. she tells me that she couldn't read some of the handwriting of the numbers, and i tell her that i regret to inform her, but i have some of the neatest handwriting she has probably ever seen, so there is no way that my cell number was hard to read. she then says, "i apologize, i just haven't had a chance to call all the numbers on the list." busted. so, they finally bring my rental car to me at 2:30pm. it was still ridiculous, so the manager gives me a $50 waiver or certificate to upgrade a rental car to something i would like...i'm thinking mercedes... my dream car.

now i'm home for one night this week, tomorrow morning i'm off to biloxi, mississippi then to allentown, pa - then home for the weekend, i'm truly exhausted and ready for the weekend. i hope everyone has a great week. hopefully no crazy stories for the next two days, but let's be real, i probably won't be that lucky... by the time friday hits, i will have been on 11 flights in 6 days, whew.

No comments: